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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And one thing that

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Speaker 1: consistently floors me in the tech world, specifically in the

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Speaker 1: tech startup world, is that a company doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be profitable to seem valuable. And to me, this sounds

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Speaker 1: like a contradiction. You know, I mean, if a company

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Speaker 1: is not making a profit, it is either breaking even

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Speaker 1: so you know, things are just staying afloat, or it's

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Speaker 1: losing money. So you would think that a company that

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Speaker 1: was not making a profit couldn't be valuable. It would

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Speaker 1: at best be neutral, and worst, it would be an

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Speaker 1: ever growing cost to operate and require you know, consistent

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Speaker 1: investment to just keep going. And yet in the tech world,

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Speaker 1: we have plenty of examples of companies that are not

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Speaker 1: profitable and yet consistently reach crazy valuations and the billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars. So we're going to talk about a few

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Speaker 1: of those today, some of which I have covered in

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Speaker 1: other episodes, And I thought we would start off with

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Speaker 1: a company that actually has become profitable but only relatively recently,

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Speaker 1: and that is Twitter for those of you who are

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Speaker 1: blissfully unaware. Twitter is a social network platform upon which

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Speaker 1: people can post short messages called tweets to followers, and

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Speaker 1: originally Twitter limited these two characters in length because the

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Speaker 1: service was largely reliant on SMS, or Short Messaging Service

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Speaker 1: a k a. Old Ashen text messaging, and because SMS

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Speaker 1: has a limit to the number of characters it can support,

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Speaker 1: which is a hundred sixty characters. Twitter also had a

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Speaker 1: limit had a little buffer built in there so that

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Speaker 1: your user name could fit in. For example, in two

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Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, Twitter would actually increase that character limit to

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Speaker 1: two eight characters, so suddenly you could be twice as wordy,

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Speaker 1: and for people like me, that was glorious. But here's

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Speaker 1: the thing. While Twitter launched in two thousand six and

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Speaker 1: eleven years later expanded that character limit throughout that entire time,

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Speaker 1: it had never had a profitable year. So let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick look at the trajectory of Twitter. Back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand six, a company called Odeo created Twitter as

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Speaker 1: kind of a side project. Some folks at Odeo kind

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Speaker 1: of got together to make it, but by the following year,

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Speaker 1: it was ready to kind of stand as its own thing,

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Speaker 1: particularly after having a big debut to the world at

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Speaker 1: large at south By Southwest in two thousand seven. South

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Speaker 1: By as you know, cool people call it. I just

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Speaker 1: call it south By Southwest because I am aware I

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Speaker 1: am not cool anyway. It's a big event in Austin, Texas,

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Speaker 1: and it includes multiple tracks of content programming. So there's

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Speaker 1: a music track in which hundreds of bands come to

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Speaker 1: Austin and they play live gigs around the city. There's

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Speaker 1: a film track in which the theaters around town will

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Speaker 1: exhibit films from both new and unknown artists and famous filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and whole discussions and things like that as well. And

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Speaker 1: then there's the interactive track, which includes all the computers

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Speaker 1: and apps and text stuff. Folks at the event adopted

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Speaker 1: Twitter pretty quickly, and that buzz really helped propel the

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Speaker 1: app and gave it a reputation as being this cool,

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Speaker 1: hip way to stay touch with friends, and later on

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Speaker 1: it became kind of seen as this tool in order

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Speaker 1: to send communications out too large numbers of people. So

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Speaker 1: it was relatively cool and hip. I mean, I would

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Speaker 1: say it was part of the interactive track. That gives

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Speaker 1: a cap on how cool and hip it can be,

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Speaker 1: because I would argue that the tech track still wishes

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Speaker 1: it was as cool as the music and film tracks are,

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Speaker 1: and I say that as a tech guy anyway. Over

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Speaker 1: the past few years, Twitter would hold various rounds of

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Speaker 1: funding in order to attract investors to supporting the platform,

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Speaker 1: and the general thought was, let's grow this thing as

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Speaker 1: much as we can and then we'll figure out how

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Speaker 1: to monetize it later, which, honestly, I mean that might

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Speaker 1: sound crazy, but it's probably the only route that you

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Speaker 1: can take with some of these tech companies. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you're launching a new app, it's hard to convince

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Speaker 1: people to jump on an untested, unproven app unless it

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Speaker 1: is free to use. Most folks are not super eager

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Speaker 1: to spend money on something that hasn't had a proven

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Speaker 1: use case, and so finding a way to scale up

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Speaker 1: and then monetize, you know, your large user base was

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Speaker 1: probably the most logical approach. Twitter co founder Jack Dorsey

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Speaker 1: led the company for a few years before handing the

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Speaker 1: control as CEO over to Evan Williams Now. In this

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Speaker 1: phase of Twitter's growth, which would be around two thousand eight,

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Speaker 1: two thousand ten, the company began exploring ways to use

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Speaker 1: promoted tweets as a type of advertising, so advertisers could

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Speaker 1: pay to promote a specific message a tweet so that

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Speaker 1: it would show up in the timelines of folks, even

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Speaker 1: if those folks weren't following that particular account. So I guess,

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Speaker 1: for you know, those who don't use Twitter, I should clarify.

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Speaker 1: The way it generally works is that you make an account,

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Speaker 1: assuming that you're making an account that can post publicly.

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Speaker 1: You can make a private account and then you can

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Speaker 1: dictate which people can actually see your tweets, but most

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Speaker 1: people have a public account. Then you end up following

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Speaker 1: accounts you want to follow. So maybe there's some notable people,

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Speaker 1: maybe there's some brands, maybe they're friends of yours that

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Speaker 1: are on Twitter. You go and you follow those and

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Speaker 1: you click a little button to follow them, and now

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Speaker 1: whenever someone posting on those accounts posts a public tweet,

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Speaker 1: that tweet shows up in your little Twitter feed and

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Speaker 1: you can read them. So let's take an example of Sally,

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Speaker 1: June and Bob. So Sally follows June, but she doesn't

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Speaker 1: follow Bob. So whenever June sends out a public tweet,

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Speaker 1: Sally sees it. Now, June follows Bob, so June can

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Speaker 1: see all of Bob's public tweets. If June were to

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Speaker 1: start a tweet with at Bob, so sending a Twitter

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Speaker 1: message to Bob, not a direct message, but at reply message,

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Speaker 1: Sally would not see that tweet automatically because Sally is

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Speaker 1: not following Bob. Now Twitter didn't always work like this,

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Speaker 1: but over the years the service institute these rules where

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Speaker 1: you have to follow both parties in order to see

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Speaker 1: these at replies on the face of them. Now, if again,

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Speaker 1: if Sally had followed both Bob and June, she would

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Speaker 1: see June's at at Bob. But now, let's say that

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Speaker 1: Bob is running a business and he wants to promote

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Speaker 1: his business. So he goes and he purchases a promoted

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Speaker 1: tweet on Twitter, and he crafts a short message urging

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Speaker 1: people to you know, follow a link to his business,

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Speaker 1: and he pays Twitter and the message posts. Now Sally

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Speaker 1: logs in, she looks at her Twitter feed, and now

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Speaker 1: she sees at the top of that Twitter feed or

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Speaker 1: near the top, Bob's message, even though she does not

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Speaker 1: follow Bob. Because that tweet has been promoted into her timeline. Now,

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Speaker 1: as you might imagine, a lot of Twitter users were

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Speaker 1: not super keen on promoted tweets, as they were often

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Speaker 1: left wondering why am I seeing this? Mean? I don't

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Speaker 1: even follow this account? But it was one of the

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Speaker 1: ways that Twitter could make money, and it did make money.

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Speaker 1: It just wasn't making enough money to offset the cost

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Speaker 1: of operating the company, so it remained operating at a loss.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand thirteen, Twitter announced it was going to

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Speaker 1: go public. It was going to become a publicly traded

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Speaker 1: company and hold an I p O or initial public offering,

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Speaker 1: so that would mean that Twitter stock would be publicly

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Speaker 1: traded on stock exchanges. Now, keep in mind that this

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Speaker 1: was still several years from Twitter actually having a profitable year,

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Speaker 1: but this also meant the company could get a fresh

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Speaker 1: injection of investment money, as folks would buy up shares

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Speaker 1: of stock. So everyone recognized that Twitter was providing a

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Speaker 1: valuable service, even if the company itself hadn't found a

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Speaker 1: way to leverage that to make the company profitable. Heck,

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Speaker 1: back in two thousand eleven, Twitter had a valuation of

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Speaker 1: eight billion dollars, but it was still seven years away

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Speaker 1: from a profitable year. In it launched a targeted advertising campaign,

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Speaker 1: a more focused approach to promoted tweets, and the following year,

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Speaker 1: the company held a round of layoffs, eliminating around nine

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Speaker 1: percent of its workforce. In the last quarter of Twitter

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Speaker 1: posted a quarterly profit of ninety one million dollars. The

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Speaker 1: company had been in operations since two thousand and six,

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Speaker 1: and this was the first profitable quarter for the company.

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Speaker 1: So three months Twitter followed that up with a string

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Speaker 1: of profitable quarters, and so two thousand eighteen became the

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Speaker 1: first profitable year in the company's history. Now, to be clear,

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Speaker 1: the company still had about one point five billion dollars

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Speaker 1: in debt at that point. Two thousand nineteen was another

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Speaker 1: good year for Twitter, but then saw a step back.

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Speaker 1: The company made larger expenditures in and despite bringing in

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Speaker 1: three point seven to billion dollars in revenue, it ended

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Speaker 1: the year with an operating loss of one point one

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Speaker 1: four billion dollars. Still, Twitter is a company that has

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Speaker 1: gone from start up to one that actually generated enough

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Speaker 1: revenue to at least sometimes cover all the costs of

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Speaker 1: operation and then some. But let's move on to a

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Speaker 1: slightly younger company. One that's perhaps on the cusp of

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Speaker 1: having its first profitable year by the end of That

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Speaker 1: company is snap Incorporated, which of course is known for

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Speaker 1: its popular video social platform Snapchat. I should say video

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Speaker 1: and photo platform Snapchat. Snapchat launched back in two thousand eleven,

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Speaker 1: meaning this company is actually a decade old, which feels

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Speaker 1: weird to say. Uh and uh, And in my mind

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Speaker 1: it's always like that thing that just came out a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago, like I have such a bad

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Speaker 1: way of placing wind tech things launched to me, like

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Speaker 1: anything pre Twitter was only around a few years. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: three Stanford University students named Reggie Brown, Evan Spiegel, and

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Speaker 1: Bobby Murphy created the app way back in the day. Now.

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Speaker 1: The story goes that Brown had come up with this

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Speaker 1: idea of a platform that would allow users to post

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Speaker 1: photos and videos that would have a limited shelf life,

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Speaker 1: so after a given amount of time, the content would disappear,

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Speaker 1: meaning you had to be actively engaged with the app

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Speaker 1: frequently or you'd end up missing out on stuff. Also,

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Speaker 1: I should add that at least some of the stories

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Speaker 1: of the early days of this idea, In fact, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the stories I should argue really revolved around

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Speaker 1: the very things that concerned critics have raised about Snapchat,

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Speaker 1: that being that the fact that you're you're talking about

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Speaker 1: video and photos that only stay active for a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of time and then they go away forever or

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Speaker 1: apparently forever, meant that folks would take photos and videos of, say,

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Speaker 1: less socially acceptable subjects. So, in other words, at least

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Speaker 1: in one recounting of this idea, the primary use case

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Speaker 1: for the disappearing photos was that it might encourage people

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Speaker 1: to send racy pictures and videos to one another. Reading

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Speaker 1: some of the accounts about this is pretty disturbing in

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Speaker 1: some cases, like it. It feels gross. Not that people

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Speaker 1: shouldn't send whatever they want to whomever they want. I

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Speaker 1: don't mean that if they are consenting adults and and

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Speaker 1: it is welcomed. I have no issues with what people

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Speaker 1: send to one another, but rather that it was a

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Speaker 1: means of encouraging this behavior from people who might otherwise

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Speaker 1: resist it. You start getting into some territory that I

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Speaker 1: find pretty ski vy. However, there are lots of other

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Speaker 1: ways of using the app that don't involve, you know,

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Speaker 1: skivie related topics and worlds are turned on such thoughts

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Speaker 1: I suppose now, Honestly, if I dived into the background

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Speaker 1: of the founders and some of the emails that they

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Speaker 1: were sending to one another, back with them each other

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Speaker 1: and with their fraternity mates, I would quickly need to

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Speaker 1: slap an explicit tag on this episode. It is not

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Speaker 1: a good luck, is all I'm gonna say, or rather

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Speaker 1: like some of it is like really reprehensible, but let's

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Speaker 1: just move on. I've been soap boxing long enough. So

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Speaker 1: this was an app that was partly built on the

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Speaker 1: premise of fomo, you know, the fear of missing out,

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Speaker 1: which was kind of brilliant because that kind of design

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Speaker 1: encourages ongoing and increased engagement, and that is something that

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Speaker 1: can be monetized if it's treated properly. It's the thing

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Speaker 1: that every platform is out for. It's why the Facebook

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Speaker 1: algorithm works the way it does. It's why the YouTube

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Speaker 1: algorithm works the way it does. It's designed to encourage

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Speaker 1: you to stay there for as long as possible. In fact,

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Speaker 1: just to backtrack a little bit, while Twitter turned a

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Speaker 1: profit in two thousand and eighteen, the company also saw

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Speaker 1: a drop in active users. In fact, that drop of

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Speaker 1: active users was bad enough that Twitter essentially said it

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Speaker 1: wasn't going to report on the number of active users

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Speaker 1: anymore and instead focus on profitability as a metric, possibly

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Speaker 1: because the company was also kind of saying that it's

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Speaker 1: long term profitability strategy hinged on building out a larger

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Speaker 1: community of active users, and it could be pretty upsetting

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Speaker 1: to investors to hear that the long term success of

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Speaker 1: a company is dependent upon something that is currently in decline. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the story of snapchat then gets really rough. Originally the

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Speaker 1: idea was for a website, but the trio soon learned

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Speaker 1: that a mobile app would be far more useful and popular,

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Speaker 1: and the app that the you originally created with Bobby

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Speaker 1: Murphy actually doing the coding was called Peka boo p

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Speaker 1: I c A b o O. And then well, a

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Speaker 1: decision was reached, and that decision was to exercise Reggie

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Speaker 1: Brown from the group to kick him out. So out

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Speaker 1: of the three, Brown had apparently made the fewest contributions

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Speaker 1: to actually building the product, though according to you know

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Speaker 1: the original story, it was his actual idea to make

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Speaker 1: this thing. He didn't do a whole lot of work

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Speaker 1: to build it. He did do some work with filing patents,

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Speaker 1: but even by his own admission, he said he didn't

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Speaker 1: do quite as much as as a Spiegel or Um

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Speaker 1: or Murphy had done. So he later would sue Snapchat,

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Speaker 1: which was essentially not even acknowledging his existence, and the

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Speaker 1: company would ultimately reach a one fifty seven point five

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Speaker 1: million dollar settlement with him, which is, you know, not

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Speaker 1: that's not a bad amount of cash to take with

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Speaker 1: you to say, like, yeah, I came up with the idea,

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Speaker 1: and then you could go and do whatever you wanted

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Speaker 1: with it. By the way, these guys were not like

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Speaker 1: struggling college students either, I just want to point that

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Speaker 1: out anyway. Brown and Spiegel then founded a company on

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Speaker 1: September six, two thousand eleven that would be Snapchat, which

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Speaker 1: was essentially a relaunch of Peekaboo, but with some you know,

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Speaker 1: changes to the look of it. The company Snap Incorporated

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Speaker 1: would follow a few years later as a sort of

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Speaker 1: parent company for the purposes you like organizing and handling

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Speaker 1: finance and things like that. The app, at first was

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Speaker 1: an iOS exclusive. It came to Android a year later

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Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve. In ten, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly made

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Speaker 1: an offer that the Snapchat founders actually could refuse, but

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Speaker 1: that offer was allegedly for three billion dollars and they

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Speaker 1: turned it down. Wowser's In two thousand seventeen, the company

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Speaker 1: held an I p O and got a massive cash

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Speaker 1: injection and that created a company valuation of twenty four

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Speaker 1: billion dollars and had introduced advertising, So it was generating revenue.

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Speaker 1: It was making cash, It just wasn't making enough to

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Speaker 1: cover all the costs in order to turn a profit.

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Speaker 1: But the app appeared to be on a rocket ship

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Speaker 1: to the moon. But then a couple of things ended

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Speaker 1: up causing the company some grief. One was that a

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Speaker 1: spurned Mark Zuckerberg decided he would build out his own

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Speaker 1: Snapchat by having the Facebook owned business of Instagram introduced

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Speaker 1: features that were let's just call it directly lifted off

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Speaker 1: of Snapchats feature list and so calling it something that

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Speaker 1: resembled Snapchats features as being kind Snapchats. Growth trailed off

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Speaker 1: weekly it dropped by so the company was actually still growing,

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Speaker 1: it was just growing at a much slower rate than

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Speaker 1: it had been. Then there was the ultimate betrayal. Snapchat

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Speaker 1: redesigned its user interface, and then Kylie Jenner sent out

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Speaker 1: a tweet saying she didn't even use it anymore, and

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Speaker 1: that was the unkindest cut of all. Honestly, I'm still

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Speaker 1: goggling at a billion dollar company that is unable to

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Speaker 1: turn a profit. I really just you know, business is

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Speaker 1: beyond me. Obviously, I am not any sort of business genius. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: snap was going through some internal turmoil. The company lost

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Speaker 1: to chief financial officers and the head of its human

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Speaker 1: resources department in short succession, and Instagram was eating into

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Speaker 1: Snapchat's growth, and then the double whammy of TikTok's emergence

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Speaker 1: began to be an issue, and then the pandemic of

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Speaker 1: really threw wrenches into the various works. The company wasn't

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Speaker 1: falling apart, not by any means, but things were pretty tense.

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Speaker 1: In The Financial Times declared that Snapchat had about three

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Speaker 1: years to reach a cash flow neutral status or else

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Speaker 1: it would need to find a new way to raise

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Speaker 1: money in order to stay in business. Its losses in

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Speaker 1: twenty eight amounted to one point three billion dollars. Now,

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Speaker 1: the good news for snap is that while the company

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Speaker 1: lost money in the years since, it was losing less

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Speaker 1: money per year in losses amounted to around nine hut

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Speaker 1: five million dollars. That's not great, I get it. The

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Speaker 1: Motley Fool reported in January of one that Snap might

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Speaker 1: actually turn a profit this year, though I glanced at

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Speaker 1: the company's quarterly earnings reports, which the company has to

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Speaker 1: file publicly because it's a publicly traded company, and it

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Speaker 1: continues to operate at a net loss this year. The

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Speaker 1: company continues to add revenue streams frequently in the four

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Speaker 1: of serving more ads per experience. But yeah, no profitable

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Speaker 1: year yet. When we come back, we'll talk about some

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Speaker 1: other famous companies that have yet to turn a profit,

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Speaker 1: at least on an annual basis. But first, well, I

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Speaker 1: gotta have some profit. Let's take a quick break before

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Speaker 1: we get into our next company. Let me hit you

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Speaker 1: with a little fun tidbit that I came across while

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Speaker 1: researching this episode. Business Insider has a two thousand nineteen

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Speaker 1: article that served as some of the inspiration for this episode.

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Speaker 1: Although a lot of the things in that list are

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Speaker 1: you know, have turned a profit since then. But in

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Speaker 1: that article they cite a report from pitch Book, and

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Speaker 1: that report says that out of one startups that had

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Speaker 1: a valuation of at least one billion dollars, that is

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Speaker 1: the Unicorn valuation only uh less than had become profitable.

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Speaker 1: In fact, sixty were unprofitable more than half. And the

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Speaker 1: article also cites a stat from Recode that says unprofitable

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Speaker 1: companies that went public actually performed better than profitable companies did.

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Speaker 1: The market loves a highly valued underdog. I guess I

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Speaker 1: mean I still don't understand business honestly. But let's move on.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about a company that's not actually a tech

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Speaker 1: company but was treated like one. And of course I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about we Work, a company that had the business

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Speaker 1: model of securing office space in various markets and then

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Speaker 1: essentially sub letting that space out to customers. And those

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Speaker 1: were typically smaller companies or sometimes companies that wanted to

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Speaker 1: open up, say a small branch office in the city

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Speaker 1: where they did not already have a presence. We Work

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Speaker 1: has had a phenomenal journey, complete with drama and theatrics,

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Speaker 1: and one of the strangest attempted I p O s

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Speaker 1: I have ever researched. Like Its bonkers, y'all. Now. The

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Speaker 1: founder of the company was Adam Newman, and Israeli born

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Speaker 1: entrepreneur who moved to the United States in two thousand

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Speaker 1: one and got his start running a company called Crawlers

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Speaker 1: with a K and that specialized in clothing for babies.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand eight, he created a new startup called

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Speaker 1: Green Desk, which was sort of a predecessor to we Work,

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Speaker 1: and the idea was to create office space that folks

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Speaker 1: like freelancers could rent out. So maybe you're a freelancing

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Speaker 1: writer and you need a dedicated workspace, so you could

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Speaker 1: rent out like a desk in a shared coworking environment

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Speaker 1: with lots of other people. So that was the idea,

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Speaker 1: and it was called Green Desk because the focus was

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Speaker 1: on sustainability, So the office space had recycled furniture in it,

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Speaker 1: and the idea was that the electricity was going to

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Speaker 1: come from wind power, that kind of thing. Newman and

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Speaker 1: his Green Desk co founder Miguel mcklvey sold off the

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Speaker 1: company for a few million dollars and around twenty or

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Speaker 1: an eleven because accounts very they launched a new company

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Speaker 1: based around the idea of shared workspaces, and this was

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Speaker 1: we Work. And again, despite the fact that you know,

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Speaker 1: it was really a real estate company, the media was

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Speaker 1: treating it like it was a tech startup, and it

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Speaker 1: was operating a lot like a tech startup, so I

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Speaker 1: guess that was the reason for the media coverage. We

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Speaker 1: Work expanded rapidly, securing office space in various cities around

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Speaker 1: the world and then renting it out to their customers.

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Speaker 1: And this meant we Work was signing these really expensive

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Speaker 1: long term leases with lots of different office buildings, and

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Speaker 1: that made some investors nervous because this was a guaranteed expense. Right,

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Speaker 1: You're doing a long term lease, that's a guaranteed cost

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Speaker 1: to your company, and we Works business of renting out

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Speaker 1: space to customers was not necessarily going to follow the

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Speaker 1: demand that would match the supply. In other words, there

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Speaker 1: might be years where fewer customers actually need that shared

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Speaker 1: office space, and yet you would still be saddled with

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Speaker 1: this long term lease agreement. The company grew very quickly.

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Speaker 1: The Newman developed a reputation for having a bit of

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Speaker 1: a lavish and some might say hedonistic lifestyle. He also

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Speaker 1: made some choices that made him a bit of a

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Speaker 1: target in the business space. Now, I would argue that

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Speaker 1: targeting Newman based on those choices was sometimes unfair and disingenuous,

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Speaker 1: like you know, placing weird kind of moral uh decisions

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Speaker 1: based upon some of his behavior, but he was also

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Speaker 1: known for spending a lot of money, both in the

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Speaker 1: company and outside of it, so it was kind of

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Speaker 1: hard to to not criticize his behaviors in some cases.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand nineteen, things came to a head. The

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Speaker 1: company was planning a public offering to go on to

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Speaker 1: the stock market. It had recently rebranded and became the

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Speaker 1: Wee Company. This is something that's since been essentially abandoned,

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Speaker 1: but the idea was that it would have three divisions.

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Speaker 1: There was the we Work division, that's the one with

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Speaker 1: the office space. There was we Grow, which was going

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Speaker 1: to or which was running an elementary school in New

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Speaker 1: York City. And there was we Live, which operated a

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Speaker 1: couple of apartment buildings. Now in the i p O filing,

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Speaker 1: the company revealed it had lost two point nine billion

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Speaker 1: dollars over the course of three years leading up to

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Speaker 1: the i p O, so nearly three billion dollars lost.

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Speaker 1: At one point, the company was seeking evaluation of around

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Speaker 1: forty seven billion dollars. That would drop down to around

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Speaker 1: ten billion as they were still attempting to hold an IPO.

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Speaker 1: By September of two thousand nineteen. We Work had delayed

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Speaker 1: the I p O T October, and an executive named

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Speaker 1: Wendy Silverstein, who was part of the real estate investment

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Speaker 1: leadership team quit like she was an high ranking executive

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Speaker 1: who walks out, and the board of directors was staring

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Speaker 1: to have actual discussions about the possibility of removing Newman

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Speaker 1: as the CEO of the company, seeing him as something

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Speaker 1: of a liability. Newman and his wife both had gained

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Speaker 1: notoriety for unconventional behavior that is unconventional for, you know,

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Speaker 1: leaders of a business valuing itself in the billions of dollars.

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Speaker 1: Some things were kind of skiezy, like he trademarked the

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Speaker 1: term WE for WE Work just w E and then

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Speaker 1: pushed the company to purchase the trademark from him for

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Speaker 1: five point nine million dollars, which kind of looks like,

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Speaker 1: you know, using the company you run to fund your

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Speaker 1: personal life directly. It's not a good look. Another issue

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Speaker 1: is that Newman apparently purchased properties and then would lease

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Speaker 1: them back to WE Work, turning his purchases into revenue

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Speaker 1: generators with the company he was running. This was, to

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Speaker 1: put it mildly, a conflict of interests and something that

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00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: would not fly for a publicly traded company, so that

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Speaker 1: presented a potential problem for the I p O. Now,

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Speaker 1: this IBO struggle meant that we works largest investor, the

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Speaker 1: mega corporation, soft Bank, would end up stepping into kind

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00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: of acquire the company. This would largely be abandoned a

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Speaker 1: few months later, and part of that process involved extending

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00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: a one point seven billion dollar golden parachute deal to

434
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: Newman to vacate his position. So imagine being paid more

435
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: than a billion and a half dollars not to work somewhere.

436
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: Please pay me not to work for you. I will

437
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 1: cut you a much better deal than one point five

438
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: billion dollars to not work for you. Under the ownership

439
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: of soft Bank, we work downsized, laying off some two thousand,

440
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: four hundred employees initially with more to follow. But then

441
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: we get to twenty twenty and the other shoe drops

442
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: super hard. So we work was already kind of in

443
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 1: our choppy sees going into twenty right like, things were

444
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: not looking good for the company. The pandemic hits, and

445
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: that necessitates many cities to initiate stay at home orders,

446
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 1: so work from home policies go into effect, and for

447
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: a company that focuses on subletting office space. It was

448
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 1: a true catastrophe. According to the Guardian, the company saw

449
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 1: a thirty percent decline in customers and losses of two

450
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: point one billion dollars in the first quarter of one.

451
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,959
Speaker 1: It's losses in the first quarter of twenty or fifty

452
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: six million, so when the pandemic starts, they lose a

453
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: little more than half a billion dollars in the first

454
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: quarter this year, first quarter losses of two point one

455
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Now, the company still has plans to go public,

456
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: but not through an I p O. Rather, the plan

457
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: was to use a spack s p a C. That's

458
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,959
Speaker 1: a special purpose acquisition company, also known as a blank

459
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: check company. So these are companies that don't actually do anything.

460
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: They just go public. So you get a bunch of

461
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,239
Speaker 1: investors to pour a whole bunch of money into a

462
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: company which just kind of exists in name and on paper,

463
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: and you then take this company that just kind of

464
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: exists on paper to go public. There's nothing wrong about that.

465
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: And then once you go public, you use this company

466
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: to acquire some other private company and then through the

467
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: transitive property of acquisition, that private company becomes a publicly

468
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: traded company, so it is a way to sidestep the

469
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: I p O process. So if it's a company like

470
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: we Work, which has lost all confidence in in the

471
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: market as far as you know, holding an I p

472
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: O is concerned, it would be a way to become

473
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: a publicly traded company without having to go through the

474
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: I p OH. It sounds shady, but it's Tod's legal. Meanwhile,

475
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: the new executive team that we Work has both reined

476
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: in the cash burn practices of the past as well

477
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: as cut back on operating expenses. So there is a

478
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: possibility that the company will have a profitable fourth quarter

479
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: this year, assuming occupancy rates improve. But then we're also

480
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: in a stage of the pandemic that has become kind

481
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: of unpredictable and questionable again with the rise of the

482
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: delta variant UH, it has a lot of people concerned,

483
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: so we'll have to see how that plays apart, even

484
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: with a profitable fourth quarter is going to end in

485
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 1: a loss for we Work, But if the company can

486
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: build momentum, it might see an operating profit by the

487
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: end of two which it can put toward its considerable debt.

488
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: We've got some more companies to talk about. But before

489
00:30:49,320 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: I get into those, let's take another quick break. Oh okay, y'all.

490
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: For this next one, I have to give you all

491
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: a disclaimer. See I work for I Heart Radio, say

492
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: it at the beginning of every single episode, and one

493
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: of our competitors in the digital space at least is Spotify.

494
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna talk about Spotify and the fact that

495
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: it has never posted an annual profit, but I'm gonna

496
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: try to do my best to remove myself from comparing

497
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: it to the company I work for, because that would

498
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: just be tacky and biased, and it's not apples to apples, right.

499
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio is a huge company that includes hundreds

500
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: of radio stations across the United States terrestrial radio stations.

501
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 1: The digital part of I Heart Radio is just one

502
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: part of a much larger company, so you can't really

503
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: compare apples to apples here. Spotify is a different beast. Plus,

504
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: I should acknowledge right out of the gate that while

505
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: Spotify has never posted an annual profit, the company has

506
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: had profitable quarters and trust me, that ain't nothing, it's something.

507
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: In other words, here's the super summarized story. Because I

508
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: have actually done episodes about Spotify in the past, But

509
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six a pair of developers named

510
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: Daniel Elk and Martin Lawrenson came up with this idea

511
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: for Spotify, and the idea was to create a streaming

512
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: music platform, a service that would give music companies away

513
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: to reach listeners a customers, and make it so easy

514
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: to listen to their music that people would stop pirating

515
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: all the ding bang music. Because this was in the

516
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: wake of really a big era of digital piracy. You

517
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: had the giant peer to peer networks like Napster and Kazam,

518
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: which were largely used to pirate music, and you also

519
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: had the rise of the torrent index site, the pirate Bay,

520
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: and like the Pirate Bay, Spotify also calls Sweden Home.

521
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,959
Speaker 1: So you know, piracy was something that was really on

522
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: the minds of people in Sweden who who were connected

523
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: to either you know, the entertainment industry or the tech

524
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: world that would facilitate this sort of stuff. So the

525
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: concept actually had a really good use case, a platform

526
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: where music companies could generate revenue from digital music rather

527
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: than see rampant piracy. Now people might end up listening

528
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: to streaming music even if they weren't the type to download,

529
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: you know, to pay for a download of the song,

530
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: and the landscape at that point was really fragmented. In

531
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: the mid two thousand's, there was Apple with the iTunes store,

532
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: which launched in two thousand one. But you purchased songs

533
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: on iTunes, right, You weren't streaming from iTunes back then.

534
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: You would just make a purchase, download it to your device,

535
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: and you would have it. And then you would have

536
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: a bunch of proprietary approaches from the various music labels

537
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 1: that were trying to operate their own digital store fronts.

538
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: But again, it just meant that it was a fractured

539
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: experience for users and not very satisfying. Spotify would launch

540
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight, two years after they first came

541
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: up with the idea, and users could either opt for

542
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: a free account that would include advertising between a certain

543
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,320
Speaker 1: number of songs and that would generate revenue right it

544
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: was just your their classic ads supported revenue generation, or

545
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,399
Speaker 1: users could opt to go with an ad free experience

546
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: in return for a monthly subscription fee. Other streaming platforms

547
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: would follow competing with Spotify, and some markets like the

548
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: United States, would not get access to Spotify for a

549
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: few years. The US finally got Spotify in July two

550
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: thou eleven, so we had been hearing about it for,

551
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: you know, nearly three years by the time we finally

552
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: got access to it. The company mostly operated at a loss,

553
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 1: except for the asional profitable quarter over the years. In

554
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:08,720
Speaker 1: Music Business World reported that Spotify's losses over its decade

555
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: of existence at that point amounted to about two point

556
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:16,959
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars. The company has spent a great deal

557
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: of money on scaling and on purchasing content, including landing

558
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: exclusive deals with some podcasters. People interested in those shows

559
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: can only get them through Spotify. It's kind of the

560
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: opposite of how we do things. So for example, the

561
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: video game discussion show The Besties, which by the way,

562
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: it's not one of our shows. I genuinely really love

563
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: the Besties, so shout out to those guys. They do

564
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 1: a great show about video games. Anyway, for about for

565
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: a year, the Bestie's was a Spotify exclusive, uh, and

566
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:56,359
Speaker 1: that agreement eventually expired, but for a year, in order

567
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: to get new episodes you needed a Spotify account, and

568
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: those episodes are now available on other platforms because that

569
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 1: exclusivity deal expired. Spotify did not renew it um, so

570
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: it's a different story now. But at a time you

571
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: can only get them through Spotify. There are some that

572
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: are Spotify exclusives and they are pay for podcasts. You

573
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: have to pay a subscription fee in order to get them. Um.

574
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: I don't know the success rate of that, because in

575
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: my experience, the paid for model is one that's really

576
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: shaky for podcasts. But I'm curious. I'll have to look

577
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,800
Speaker 1: into that. Maybe I'll do an episode about it. Anyway,

578
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: Spotify spent more than half a billion dollars acquiring podcast

579
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: related companies like Anchor FM, gimblet Media, Podcast and more.

580
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: Elkas said that the company is still focused largely on

581
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: growth and will switch to a profit based strategy at

582
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: some point, presumably when the company has grown enough. And

583
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: this gets back to that thing I was saying earlier

584
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: that sometimes concentrating on growth is the most important strategy,

585
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: because if you try and monetize too early, not only

586
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: will you not make enough money to cover costs, but

587
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: you might inhibit the growth of your company. And in

588
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: the company posted a profitable first quarter. Now, according to Spotify,

589
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 1: it posted a fourteen million euro profit for quarter one

590
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,240
Speaker 1: of one. That's about sixteen point six million dollars US,

591
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: and recently the company posted a twelve million euro operating

592
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 1: profit for the second quarter. That's about fourteen point to

593
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: five million dollars US. So if the rest of the

594
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: year follows, Spotify could actually see its first annual profit

595
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: by the end of twenty one, though of course it

596
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: still has a mountain of debt that it has to address.

597
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: It's not like it's completely out of the woods, but

598
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: it could be that's turned a very important corner by

599
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: the end of this year. And and next I think

600
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a company that posted its first

601
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: annual profit in twenty twenty, but only if you put

602
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: a big old asterisk next to that. And this company

603
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,439
Speaker 1: is Tesla. Now. The co founders of Tesla and yes

604
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is one of them, launched the company in

605
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:24,320
Speaker 1: two thousand three. And a startup automobile company is obviously

606
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: a huge undertaking. As you might imagine, the startup costs

607
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: are considerable. So think of like a company that just

608
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 1: you know, is not like a manufacturing company. You have

609
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: all your basic expenses, right, you have to have a

610
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: corporate headquarters, and you've got all the different departments that

611
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: you would expect to have, like sales and marketing, and

612
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 1: so you have operating costs associated with them. But with Tesla,

613
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: you also have an auto manufacturing side of the business

614
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: that's enormously expensive to build out, and so the company

615
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 1: was making huge investments in itself year after year, which

616
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 1: meant that despite the high cost of the company's frequently

617
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: highly desired cars, the company as a whole was operating

618
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: at a loss. And for some people like me, I'm

619
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,279
Speaker 1: counting myself in here, it can be confusing, right, because

620
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: you think cars are expensive. Clearly, if you're selling enough cars,

621
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: you're gonna be making tons of money. But making cars

622
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: is also expensive, especially when you're building out the manufacturing

623
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: capabilities of your company. So for a lot of you,

624
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's not a big surprise, right, And a

625
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 1: Tesla vehicle does cost a lot. So, for example, the

626
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: least expensive Tesla model is the Model three, which has

627
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: a base standard price of forty one one dollars, with

628
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: one two hundred of that being a destination fee to

629
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:54,280
Speaker 1: get the car to wherever you are buying it. But hey, actually,

630
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,799
Speaker 1: right now, because of the crazy, screwed up world we

631
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: live in, because of the pandemic, because of the semiconductor shortage,

632
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 1: and thus because of a car shortage, that actually is

633
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: not that much more expensive than the average car price

634
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: in the United States. As of June one, the average

635
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: car price here in the US was forty two hundred

636
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: six dollars. So because of those issues, Tesla's prices, at

637
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 1: least for its you know, most inexpensive car are actually

638
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 1: pretty competitive compared to the average price in the United States.

639
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: So I guess I have to eat my words on

640
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 1: that one, although to be fair, the other Tesla models

641
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: are much more expensive. Now usually we do think of

642
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 1: Tesla's cars as being on the price e side. And

643
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: even so, that wasn't enough to push the company into profitability.

644
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 1: And again it's no wonder because the company was building

645
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: out new factories and all that kind of thing. But

646
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: then there's the other source of revenue that Tesla enjoys,

647
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: and it's a big one. In fact, it's a bigger

648
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 1: revenue source than what it generates from our sales, and

649
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: that revenue comes from regulatory credits. See some states here

650
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: in the United States, eleven of them, in fact, have

651
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: regulations that require automakers to sell a certain percentage of

652
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: their cars as zero emission vehicles by so, in other words,

653
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: if you want to sell a car in one of

654
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: those states, a certain percentage of the cars you make

655
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: have to be zero emission vehicles. And I say certain

656
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: percentage because it differs from state to state. And if

657
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: the automakers are not going to be able to make

658
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: that percentage number, you know, if they're not able to

659
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: produce enough zero emission vehicles to make up that percentage

660
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 1: of the cars they want to sell in those states,

661
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: they have to offset that by buying up regulatory credits

662
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:52,280
Speaker 1: from some other automaker that does meet those requirements. Well,

663
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: all Tesla vehicles are electric, and so Tesla has a

664
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: big old heap in handful of regulatory credits that it

665
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: can sell to other manufacturers, and it does so. More

666
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:09,439
Speaker 1: than half of Tesla's revenue in twenty twenty came not

667
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: from selling cars, but from taking money from other automakers

668
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: that will not be able to meet those regulatory requirements

669
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 1: by twenty five. Just pretty wild, right anyway. Twenty twenty

670
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: was the first profitable year for Tesla, but the company

671
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: would have operated at a loss if it had not

672
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: been for those regulatory credits, and those credits are not

673
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: gonna stick around forever. In a few years, other automakers

674
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 1: will have caught up with those regulatory requirements because we're

675
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 1: going to see more states passing them. We might see

676
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: federal level. Other parts of the world are following suit.

677
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: So that means that eventually all the car companies are

678
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: going to be on the same page, and those that

679
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 1: credit market will not even exist. It will go away.

680
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: So while Tesla is profitable for the moment, it will

681
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,800
Speaker 1: not be able to rely up on that specific source

682
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: of revenue for much longer, and it will need to

683
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: find another roadmap to profitability. I have another pair of

684
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: companies to talk about, but before I get to that,

685
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: let's take one last quick break. Okay, finally, we've got

686
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: a pair of companies to consider, and I'm putting them together.

687
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: I'll talk about them separately, but they're they're paired together

688
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 1: because they're both in the same business. And those companies

689
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:39,439
Speaker 1: are Uber and Lift, the ride sharing companies. Uh. These

690
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: companies have long been seen as huge disruptors to the

691
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,839
Speaker 1: legacy taxi services around the world, right, I mean, there

692
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: are famous protests that taxi unions have held in response

693
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: to companies like Lift and Uber moving into their territories.

694
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: So they are seen as these massive disruptors, and disruptors

695
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 1: tend to get a particularly romantic portrayal in the tech sector.

696
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: They're thought of as being these, you know, giant companies

697
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: that can just stride in and shake the way things

698
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: are done and and just be incredibly profitable. But these

699
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: particular companies have been disruptive at a considerable loss. Uh heck,

700
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: a loss so considerable that even some of the most

701
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: creative accounting on the planet can only make those losses

702
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 1: look less bad. Let's take Uber for example. Uber started

703
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, and originally it was sort of

704
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: a black town car service, you know, kind of a

705
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: uh an upscale way to get around. It was not

706
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: quite frame the way it is today. And the story

707
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: goes that the co founders of the company were sharing

708
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 1: stories about how hard it was to get a taxi

709
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: in Paris during a snowstorm, and wouldn't it be great

710
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: if someone could just create a company that could shake

711
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,240
Speaker 1: up the way that car services work and that taxi

712
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: services work. And this led to this idea of a

713
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: ride sharing company, which really is more of a ride

714
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: hailing company. I think a right sharing company would be

715
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:17,239
Speaker 1: more like something that would encourage car pools, but that's

716
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: not what Uber or Lift do. So while we often

717
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: call them ride sharing I think they're really more ride

718
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 1: hailing companies. And what followed was a meteoric rise in

719
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,880
Speaker 1: terms of investment rounds and rolling out of services. The

720
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:36,439
Speaker 1: company also earned itself a pretty ugly reputation. For one thing,

721
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 1: Uber insisted repeatedly that the people driving for Uber were

722
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: not Uber employees, but rather they should be considered independent

723
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 1: freelance contractors, which meant they also would not qualify for

724
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: stuff like benefits. For another, the company became famous for

725
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: having a truly toxic corporate work environment, and it was

726
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: one that protected male executives from charges of harassment from

727
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: their female coworkers. You know, harassment and worse. The stories

728
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:11,919
Speaker 1: are are truly terrible, and it became one of those

729
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: companies that prompted folks to say human resources is not

730
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 1: there to protect you, it's there to protect the company. Now.

731
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: That whole story is beyond awful, and it culminated in

732
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: the board of directors forcing the co founder and CEO

733
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: of the company out. He was he was highly encouraged

734
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:36,320
Speaker 1: to resign. Let's say what followed was a new leadership

735
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: team that claimed to be dedicated to overhauling the corporate

736
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:44,919
Speaker 1: culture and atoning for the past and building towards profitability,

737
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: because you know, Uber wasn't profitable at all. It was

738
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 1: losing money every year. So while we were hearing these

739
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 1: stories about Uber drivers seeing much of their fairs siphoned

740
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: to the company. In other words, the people doing the driving,

741
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of the money they were bringing

742
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: in going not to them but to the company. The

743
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: expenses of the operations were such that Uber as a

744
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: whole still wasn't turning a profit. So it's kind of

745
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: like the worst of both worlds, right. You had the

746
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: drivers saying we should be keeping more of the money

747
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: that we generate, and the company, meanwhile, even taking the

748
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: you know that percentage, was losing money. Despite all this,

749
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 1: Uber still held an initial public offering and became a

750
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,240
Speaker 1: publicly traded company. So once again we have a company

751
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 1: that was not profitable. It was operating in a loss

752
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: year over year, still holding an I p O, and

753
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 1: still generating crazy stock market prices. So it continued to

754
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 1: lose money on an annual basis. Despite all this, the

755
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: company's fiscal year for twenty nineteen was bleak. It had

756
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 1: a loss of eight point five billion dollars and have

757
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: billion dollars loss, but in early the hope was that

758
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 1: by the end of that year the company would be profitable.

759
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 1: And then the pandemic hit in full force, and as

760
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: you might imagine, was a tough year. Oddly enough, not

761
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: as tough a year as two thousand nineteen was for Uber,

762
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: so Uber posted a six point seven seven billion dollar

763
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:22,919
Speaker 1: loss in unless you're paying attention to Uber's finance call

764
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:28,399
Speaker 1: when discussing, because that's when the magical accounting comes into play. Now,

765
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: you see, Uber was being kind of loosey goosey with

766
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: the concept of ebida and ebida or e B I

767
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: T d A is an acronym that stands for earnings

768
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. It's kind of a

769
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: way of saying how much cash a business generates or

770
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: loses over a given amount of time, So you could

771
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: have quarterly or annual, et cetera. It's not quite profit,

772
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: or at least it's not as simple as profit as

773
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 1: you do have these other factors like taxes and such

774
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: that will factor into the end result, but it's generally

775
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: used as a way of judging the comparative health of

776
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: a company at a given time. Well, Uber was working

777
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: with an adjusted EBIDA that included twelve categories of exclusion,

778
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 1: which in itself was pretty unusual. So with that, creative

779
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: accounting essentially saying here's how much we lost as long

780
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: as you ignore these twelve other factors, that collectively means

781
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: we actually lost more than this, those losses came down

782
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 1: from six point seven seven billion dollars to a more

783
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: modest two point five three billion dollars. Because creative accounting

784
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 1: can only get you so far. Now, Uber executives argue

785
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: that the company is on track to have a positive

786
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:55,279
Speaker 1: EBIDA by the end of twenty one. But keep in

787
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: mind that's with all these exclusions in play. If we

788
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 1: actually include those factors rather than exclude them, we're likely

789
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,759
Speaker 1: still talking about actual loss in the real world once

790
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 1: all the ink dries. Despite that, the shares for the

791
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 1: company have been on the rise since they're low of

792
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars per share during an earlier time in the pandemic,

793
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: so that company could turn a quasi profit at the

794
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: end of one, but with you know, a big asterisk

795
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 1: behind that. If it can do that, and if it

796
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: can build upon that, then we might finally see a

797
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: ride sharing company emerge from operating at a loss despite

798
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 1: you know, that whole disruptive thing. But now let's talk

799
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 1: about Lift. Lift launched in two thousand and twelve, so

800
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 1: it came after Uber, and over the years has been

801
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: in a pretty nasty battle with Uber. Sometimes that battle

802
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 1: even included employees of one company actively trying to sabotage

803
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: the operations of the other company. It got ugly, y'all.

804
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 1: But that's a matter for different episode. Anyway. Like Uber,

805
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 1: Lift operated at a loss year after year, expanding into

806
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: new markets and holding its own I p O to

807
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 1: go public, but the company continued to lose money, not

808
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 1: turning a profit. In twenty nineteen, it lost two point

809
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 1: six billion dollars. In twenty the company saw revenue shrink,

810
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 1: so it was three point six two billion dollars in

811
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, it shranked to two point three six

812
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: billion dollars in twenty twenty. That's revenue despital that even

813
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: though it's a less revenue, it actually also saw fewer losses.

814
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, it came in at one point seven

815
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 1: five billion dollars in losses, still not great, but not

816
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 1: as bad as twenty nineteen. But like Uber, lift has

817
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: its own you know, accounting wizardry that it uses lifts

818
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,319
Speaker 1: adjusted ebitas stated that it actually lost six hundred eighty

819
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 1: nine point nine million dollars in twenty nineteen, and surprisingly,

820
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,760
Speaker 1: it lost seven fifty five point two million in twenty

821
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 1: Now I say surprisingly, I realize I'm throwing a lot

822
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:09,399
Speaker 1: of numbers at you. It's kind of just becomes word

823
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:11,919
Speaker 1: salad or numbers salad at a point. But the reason

824
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: I say surprisingly is because using lifts metrics, it looks

825
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: like the company lost more in than it did in

826
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 1: but using a different set of metrics, the opposite is true.

827
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: In both cases, It's still lost money both years, and

828
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:32,240
Speaker 1: just the question is how much Like Uber Lifts, mathematic

829
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:35,800
Speaker 1: wizardry suggests that the company will reach a positive EBITA

830
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 1: by the end of this year. But like Uber, without

831
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: that adjusted EBITA approach, the story is that the company

832
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 1: is going to continue to operate at a loss unless

833
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:49,440
Speaker 1: things really change in the last quarter of one. In fact,

834
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: earlier this year, Lift announced that it had a net

835
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 1: loss of four d twenty seven point three million dollars

836
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,959
Speaker 1: in the first quarter of one. Now I can't tell

837
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:03,400
Speaker 1: you why their second quarter results are because I'm recording

838
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: this on the same day it publishes, August two, and

839
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: the company hasn't announced that yet because that announcement happens

840
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: tomorrow on August three, So we'll see then if things

841
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: have changed. But yeah, this is an odd thing, right,

842
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,800
Speaker 1: It's weird to see these companies that get these incredible valuations.

843
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: There's this amazing amount of excitement and investment poured into

844
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: these companies, and they can go for a decade or

845
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 1: longer without turning a profit, and some of them might

846
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 1: never turn a profit. Now, the good news is that

847
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:41,719
Speaker 1: for the ones that can stick around long enough, they

848
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 1: might be able to find a revenue path that does

849
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:47,319
Speaker 1: work and that they can build on that, and so

850
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: that investment over the long term becomes a good idea.

851
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:54,240
Speaker 1: But for a lot of people, I think they probably

852
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: feel like these companies feel like almost a Ponzi scheme

853
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,400
Speaker 1: or pyramid scheme, and that you might get in early

854
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 1: on and invest in this company, and then you get

855
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: the sinking feeling that the company is never going to

856
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 1: turn a profit, But if you hype it up, then

857
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 1: other people are going to come in and invest, and

858
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: you might be able to get your investment back out

859
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 1: or even turn a profit on it. Right, Like if

860
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 1: you bought shares of stock when it was trading at

861
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars and then it ends up trading at sixty dollars,

862
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,839
Speaker 1: you can get out and make a profit on that.

863
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:30,600
Speaker 1: Even if you deeply suspect this company is not going

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00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: to be profitable. It's crazy to me, like tech either

865
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: works or it doesn't work. Right, It's pretty simple to

866
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 1: describe the operations of tech when you really boil it down.

867
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,800
Speaker 1: But business, you know, business just don't make no sense.

868
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it makes sense. End dollars. That's

869
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:53,320
Speaker 1: a dad joke. I'm done. I'm sorry. Hey, this wraps

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00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:56,799
Speaker 1: up this episode of tech Stuff. If you have a

871
00:54:56,800 --> 00:54:59,320
Speaker 1: suggestion for a topic I should cover in the future,

872
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 1: please each out to me. The best way to do

873
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: that is on Twitter, you know, the profitable one and

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00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: the handle there is text stuff h s W and

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00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Y. Tech Stuff

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00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,359
Speaker 1: is an I Heart radio production. For more podcasts from

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00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

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00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:27,240
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.